- Dark Queen (Battletoads)
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Dark Queen (Battletoads) Series Battletoads First game Battletoads (1991) Voiced by Lalainia Lindbjerg (cartoon) The Dark Queen is a fictional character in the Battletoads video game series. First introduced in 1991, the Dark Queen is a mysterious rule of evil and supreme commander of a renegade space army consisting primarily of anthropmorphic pigs and rats, who is bent on galactic conquest. She has received considerable attention due to her sex appeal, in particular in the early years of video gaming, as well as for being one of the first major female villains in video games.[1]
Contents
In video games
The Dark Queen is the ultimate enemy to the Battletoads, as she has repeatedly attempted to eliminate the 'Toads and Professor T. Bird in order to stop them from hindering her evil plans. Throughout the series she usually appears to taunt the 'Toads in the cutscenes, before being confronted as the game's final boss. Despite her royal stature, she prefers to be no more cultured than the Battletoads themselves, due to the crude nature of her speech which consists primarily of surfer slang and offensive puns (such as calling them "cattle-loads" and "wartfeatures").
The Dark Queen is introduced in the first Battletoads game, following her defeat by the Galactic Corporation at the battle of Canis Major, as she and her remaining forces escaped to hide in the planet Ragnarok's World "in dark spaces between the stars". As Professor T. Bird and the Battletoads - Rash, Zitz and Pimple - are escorting the Princess Angelica, daughter of the Terran Emperor, the Dark Queen strikes and captures the Princess along with Pimple. The other two Battletoads go to the Ragnarok's World and manage to rescue the captives and defeat the Dark Queen at her Tower of Shadows, but she escapes. In the GameBoy game, the Dark Queen pretends to be a Thallian Thorax Dancer to capture Rash and Pimple and take them away in the enormous spaceship Gargantua to the planet Armagedda.
In Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, she has partnered with the vengeful technician Silas Volkmire to kidnap Zitz and Michiko Tashoku, the daughter of the President of the Psicone Corporation, creators of the computer-generated portal Gamescape, intending to transform the entire world into Gamescape Kingdom over which they would rule together. The other two 'Toads defeat the Dark Queen again, this time at her Dark Tower, and the she flees again to "to the outer reaches of the Universe", vowing revenge. In the crossover game Battletoads & Double Dragon, the Dark Queen teams up with the Shadow Boss. Together, they use a mysterious energy beam from outer space to renders Earth's military might powerless and use a giant spaceship called the Colossus to take over you Earth. The Battletoads join up with Billy and Jimmy Lee, otherwise known as the Double Dragons, and once again foil her plans.
Character design
The Dark Queen is a sultry woman with black big hair and skin-tight skimpy black (or dark blue) outfit with matching long gloves and above-knee high boots. Throughout the games there have been several inconsistencies regarding her actual size: although her height is stated to be 6-feet tall on her profile screen in the arcade game Super Battletoads (which would mean she's actually smaller than the Battletoads), she normally appears to be of a tremendous size in the games, usually roughly four times the height of the 'Toads (it can be presumed that she has the magical ability to change her size).
In Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, she is also wearing a red cape and wielding a snake-themed staff. In Super Battletoads, she was "sexed up ... a bit for the allegedly more mature arcade crowd",[2] which meant erect nipples visible through her outfit and a breast bounce effect;[3] an in-game portrait also shows her hair spread out in a fashion much like Medusa's.
Gameplay
The Dark Queen is usually fought as the end boss of the game. In the original Battletoads, she only has one special move besides basic kicks, spinning until turning into a tornado and then attempting to hit the player (how much damage is done to the player is based on how fast she is spinning). In Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, she instead teleports and attacks the players with magical projectiles from staff. In Battletoads and Double Dragon, she is capable of transforming into a flame and moving accross the floor, remaining untouchable by doing so; she will also attack by emerging from the flame and throwing fireballs.
The Dark Queen does not appear as a boss character in either the Game Boy game nor the Arcade game (in which she only appears as a holographic projection in the third stage, watching the boss fight between the 'Toads and Scuzz's Robo-Rat).
Reception
The Dark Queen has been twice nominated for the Nintendo Power Awards in the category villain of the year for 1991 and 1993.[4][5]
In 2008, UGO.com included her on their list of the Top 50 Evil Women ("Female villains were quite rare in the early days of video games, with the fairer sex usually reserved as kidnapped princesses in another castle. Not only was the Dark Queen revolutionary, she was also dead sexy - possibly the hottest babe of the 8-bit era, with her Veronica Lake hair and huge bazooms"),[6] also commenting that the Battletoads series is "notorious for its insanely high difficulty, juvenile sense of humor and big-boobed antagonist",[7] and "the anger we felt at losing was only compounded by how hot and unattainable the Dark Queen was".[8] In 2011, Complex ranked her 10th on the list of The 25 Most Diabolical Video Game She-Villains, calling her "as hot as Jessica Rabbit"[9] and commenting: "Where the TMNT had April O'Neil to flirt with, the most bodacious chick in the Battletoad universe is ironically the final boss who wants them all dead.[10]
In addition, Seanbaby called her the sexiest NES game character,[11] Geek World included her among the greatest villains of the 8-bit era and called her the sexiest NES character,[12] Gawker commented on the short-lived Battletoads cartoon how "Shredder had nothing on the Toads' sexy nemesis, The Dark Queen",[13] GameHall ranked her ninth on the list of 10 most beautiful and deadly game villainesses.[14] GamesRadar wrote while featuring her in the a 2011 retrosective article featuring the sexy video game women of the sprite era: "There’s no shortage of leather-clad bad girls in videogames these days, but they all owe a little something to this enterprising villainess. She paved the way for the women of the future. Like a suffragette ... except that comparison is grossly inappropriate."[15]
References
- ^ Steven A. Schwartz, Janet Schwartz, The Parent's Guide to Video Games, Prima Pub., 1994 (p.8)
- ^ Battletoads Retrospective - Retro Feature at IGN
- ^ The Forgotten: Battletoads on the go and in the arcades -Destructoid
- ^ Nintendo Power #34 (March 1992)
- ^ Nintendo Power #60 (March 1994)
- ^ The Dark Queen - UGO.com
- ^ 25 Games That Need Sequels - UGO.com
- ^ Super-Hard Video Games You Never Finished - UGO.com
- ^ Bad Girls Club: The 25 Most Diabolical Video Game She-Villains | Complex
- ^ 10 Really Ugly Good Guys | Complex
- ^ "Congratulation! Award for Sexiest Game Character" by Seanbaby
- ^ Najwięksi dranie ośmiu bitów, cz. II – Dark Queen - Geek World (Polish)
- ^ Battletoads: Pilot
- ^ Top 10 – Vilãs dos Games – Lindas e Mortais « GameHall Network (Portuguese)
- ^ The sexiest sprites of all time | GamesRadar
External links
- Dark Queen at IGN
- Dark Queen at Giant Bomb
Battletoads Original game · Game Boy game · Battletoads & Double Dragon · Battletoads in Battlemaniacs · Arcade gameCharacters (Dark Queen)Categories:- Female video game characters
- Fictional characters introduced in 1991
- Fictional characters who can teleport
- Fictional pirates
- Fictional warlords
- Fictional witches
- Science fiction characters
- Video game bosses
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